


Humanity is a deer in the headlights

by Arkeis07



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Gen, The final showdown, my own version of events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arkeis07/pseuds/Arkeis07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You fill yourself with /  the fire of innocence / a karmic stain will bring you back through the gates again/</p>
<p>It's the Final Showdown. This is the version of events in which my heart isn't broken over a dead vampire.</p>
<p>A/N: This got really campy, I'm sorry. (lol idk its whatever). Unbeta'd and rushed and just, ugh,  you guys my heart.<br/>_________<br/>Laura struggles to open her eyes. She sees Carmilla very close to her, close enough to see the blood on her face and smell her singed hair. Carmilla's eyes shoot a deeply unsettling worry into Laura and that's when she catches sight of Silas University.</p>
<p>On fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humanity is a deer in the headlights

Title taken from Spinnerette's ["Ghetto Love"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae23oi9sxYg)

_/You fill yourself with /  the fire of innocence / a karmic stain will bring you back through the gates again/_

_//Oh how I wonder what will become of us/ I'm just a girl out looking for love//_

* * *

 

_It's so nice here_ , Laura thinks, the earth warm on her cheek and flashes of light dancing just beyond her closed eyelids. _What if I just stay here...?_

She feels tremors travel across the ground, her body humming with reverberation. She hears too many things at once, so her ears have helpfully numbed the sound to a mere dull static, like white noise lulling her to sleep.

 

 

_\- laura get up -_

 

Laura sighs as another wave of drowsiness smothers her like a warm blanket. It helps block out the discomfort that's coming from her right shoulder and side of her head.

 

_\-- Laura Please --_

 

She feels her hair pulled away from her face like a curtain, and the world gets uncomfortably brighter, so she scrunches up her eyes because lethargy won't let her turn her head away.

 

\--- _Get UP Laura, UP, PLEASE ---_

 

Now she's being shaken not by the trembling earth but by a pair of trembling hands, the fingertips latching on in a way that's sure to bruise. Upset by this, Laura groans.

That's when she feels her body roughly dragged into a cradle of arms and chest, and along the front of her, which was previously warmed by the ground, is blasted with a jet stream of hot air, a loud explosion registering through the ringing static. And then a voice registers too, calling her name.

_Carmilla?_

Laura struggles to open her eyes. She sees Carmilla very close to her, close enough to see the blood on her face and smell her singed hair. Carmilla's eyes shoot a deeply unsettling worry into Laura and that's when she catches sight of Silas University.

On fire.

 

Another explosion erupts and an unearthly, monstrous cry echoes from the fiery pit where the Lustig Chapel once stood.

_Lophiiformes._

"Stand up, Laura, C'mon," Carmilla urges again through the haze of Laura's hearing. She is tugged up to standing and Laura uses the vampire's shoulder as a brace. Laura reaches up to her right ear, where somewhere above it she now knows is bleeding, and she's pretty sure she's suffered a concussion.

A beam of light, blinding and mesmerizing at once, shoots out of the fires, exploding rubble nearby. It's all Laura can do to remain on this plane of consciousness because, really, all the events leading up to this moment in her life are _absolutely insane_ and Laura is just trying to keep up.

They run clinging to each other, making their way towards the nearest structure for cover. Laura hears Carmilla heave a great snarl as her fangs and a burning fury in her eyes erupt, and she swipes an attacking vampire crony clear across the battlefield and out of their way.

"The blade - !" And Carmilla's voice draws Laura's gaze, and she sees it, the sword is stuck in the golden altar at the bottom of the Lustig pit, the stone remains of a labyrinth sacrificial chamber littering the ground around it. When the Blade of Hastur had pierced the mystic energy circle surrounding the altar, the dreaded Lophiiformes had exploded into being, incredibly pissed off and looking for someone to blame. Now, nearby the ruined altar, a hellmouth vortex has spilt the time-space fold and some frightening creatures, probably servants of the Terrible Light, are spilling out onto the campus quad. Laura's way outta her league.

 

"Carmilla, you can't! Your arm - !" Laura pleads, and Carmilla glances down at her quite charred right arm, and actually _growls_. The entire time she had been wielding the thing, it consumed her arm like a chemical fire. Once it connected with the much more powerful and "opposing" force of the ancient Lophiiformes, it released Carmilla's arm and threw out everybody that was in the chamber via an energy shockwave. The vampire's arm hangs limp and blackened at her side, but Carmilla can still move it, as evident by the tight fist she's making that's shedding ashes to the ground.

At that moment, Will drops down from the sky suddenly, the ground crushed beneath his feet. With an evil smirk that turns into a fanged snarl, he launches at Carmilla. Laura is pushed to the ground as Carmilla engages him, but she can't keep track of their movements. And besides, another minion has appeared to Laura's left, wielding an impressively medieval spiked mace.

Before Laura can so much as open her mouth as wide as her eyes, the attacker is hockey-slammed out of sight, skidding across the field some 10 feet away. In front of her now is Danny; her flame red hair is shimmering from sweat and firelight, her jeans are ripped to shreds  and there's a streak of blood under her left eye.

 

Standing tall above Laura and reaching out her hand, she's a cross between heavenly warrior, Amazonian Queen and titan huntress.

 

"Danny, you're here!" Laura says stupidly. She's definitely concussed, for sure.

"I've been here," Danny replies, shaking her hand in front of Laura's face, hoisting her up when she finally grabs it. "You said something about Friday, so I figured I'd be ready, just in case. Can't say I was super prepared for a hellmouth swallowing up the theater building, but what can ya do?"

"The Calvary's finally arrived though, " and Danny nods across the quad-turned-battlefield, where her Summer Society and the Zetas are rushing towards a pack of weird dog-hellspawn.

Laura suddenly latches onto Danny, her fingers grasping the back of Danny's shirt. "I never meant for any of this! This is so crazy and I -"

"This is Silas, Hollis. It's always been crazy."

"I mean - I meant between us. I'm - I'm sorry for the past few weeks, I just got so sucked into all this - "

 

Danny suddenly grips Laura tighter to her chest and spins them both around, firing what may have been a _ninja star_ out of her right hand and straight into the face of a demon-thing.

"You're really terrible at picking places to have serious conversations with me, Laura. But for the record, I'm sorry too. Now move it, we're right out in the open!"

They run across the quad, dodging Zetas and vampire lackeys and fireballs of light and _ninja stars_ and Laura doesn't mind that Danny's leading her by the hand because frankly she's _terrified_.

 

" _Where are you going?!"_ Carmilla hisses as she skids to a smoking halt in the earth in front of them, looking ferocious. She's got the Blade again, and it's creeping up a fire along her arm.

"I'm getting Laura out of here!" Danny screams over another explosion.

"OK fine!" Carmilla yells, and then catches sight of Laura's face, and shakes her head. "I mean, yes, go. Head to the Chemistry building, it's built like a fortress."

"By now I think it's safe to assume that it totally is. We need to get everyone inside," Danny adds.

 

Laura finally registers what's happening and pushes Danny away, squaring her shoulders. "Hold on a hot second, I'm not going anywhere! We came here to end this!"

"And I will!" both Carmilla and Danny cry at the same time. They share an awkwardly mean sideways glance. Laura shakes her head. "We're a team, we fight together."

Danny looks over her shoulder at the blazing ruins of the Lustig, the pit shining dark star bright through the haze of smoke and destruction.

"That huge light, that's the thing that wants to eat them right? All our friends?"

Carmilla turns to face the Terrible Light. "Yes. And every twenty years, Maman has done its bidding. But that ends tonight."

Across the field, at the other side of the pit, Laura sees Perry and Kirsch scrambling over the edge of the pit, leading LaFontaine, Betty, Elise and Natalie away from the sacrifice.

"Laura," Danny says, spotting them too, "we gotta get the others over to Chem Lab, the classrooms are double reinforced." Laura nods firmly.

"I'm going to keep my mother busy," Carmilla narrows her eyes and catches sight of the Dean, standing up to her full intimidating height in front of the fiery rubble of her office building. Throwing her head back and loosing an unearthly howl as a beam of light shoots out of her mouth, she's the most terrifying thing Laura's ever seen.

"Oh perfect." Carmilla curls her good hand into a fist at her side, "Looks like she's just been possessed by an ancient unspeakable evil. "

Laura reaches out a hand to Carmilla's undamaged arm, looking like she wants to say something. Carmilla looks back at her intensely, and after a moment of Laura's silence, Carmilla nods, and gently pulls away. Danny comes closer to Laura's side, and Laura leans into her warmth for just a moment. "Let's go get the others," she says with a push on Danny's hip.

\--

Perry has been holding her own against would-be attackers with her expert handling of pepper spray and bag full of homemade wooden stakes, and when Danny and Laura reach her from across the quad, she leads them successfully into the hall of the Chemistry Building, which looks definitely like a fortress that was built for just such an occasion as the Apocalypse at Silas, and together they barricade the large grating guarding the entrance hall with desks and a toppled over soda machine. They then rush up the stairs to the second floor experiment labs (figuring at the very least they've got a healthy supply of volatile chemicals and Bunsen burners to keep attackers at bay).

When Carmilla stormed into the Lustig sacrificial chamber and her blade had popped the energy bubble at the underground altar, the celebratory hold the Hungry Light had on the minds of its victims lifted temporarily, but there's still a symptomatic headache going around and LaFontaine keeps talking nonsense. Currently, the Bio major seems to be struggling with lapses of lucidity between the apparent pain in their mind. Scratching at the blackboard with a broken nub of chalk, Laura can't make sense of what LaFontaine's saying, but what Laura does recognize is the periodic table of elements that LaF is drawing over and over in tiny boxes.

 

Meanwhile Laura busies herself with making sure Betty ( _Betty oh betty, you beautiful sight for sore eyes_ )Elsie, Natalie and Kirsch are unscathed. Kirsch is cradling his arm which seems possibly broken, maybe from the explosive shockwave at the altar, but he keeps shaking his head and getting this intense look in his eyes, and says he wants to fight. Betty and Natalie are much more subdued than he is, so Perry and Laura talk them back into lucidity while Danny huddles with Kirsch in the corner, a hand on his shoulder and a tight, concerned look on her face. From across the room Laura appreciates the way Danny treats Kirsch as a brother, and it maybe sheds a little more light onto her thoughts about certain arguments with Danny, and Laura makes a mental note to _really, work things out_ with her after all this.

 

Suddenly LaFontaine is at Laura's shoulder, holding the nub of chalk in the middle of their palm at Laura's eye level. Laura watches as LaFontaine starts talking about cobalt and phosphorous and spectrometers and Laura is totally lost but then LaFontaine curls their palm and crushes the tiny nub, letting it the dust fall to the ground.

"It takes a taste of freedom to imprison it -" and then LaF turns to the nearest lab table and starts setting up beakers and running to the chemical compound storage closet (which they totally punched a hole in through the glass to open) and Perry squeals and is at LaFontaine's side at once. The recklessly loyal and brave Bio major, Laura notices, is not letting their bleeding hand stop them from "doing science," which is what LaFontaine keeps whispering excitedly to Perry. Eventually Perry starts to somehow understand the discovery that LaFontaine is on their way to making, and she begins fetching science-y-looking containers of colored dust and glass bottles of liquid chemistry.

 

It's right when things start to get a little too stagnant for Laura that they all feel rather than hear the cracking of stone foundations as the Dean/Lophiiformes shrieks outside the building ( _way too close)_ , sending a jet missile of burning light into the sky. Laura runs to the window, and sees Carmilla just below it, rushing around faster than Laura can keep an eye on her, trying to distract the Dean, who seems to be _gliding_ purposefully and murdering-ly towards their building.  Another shriek lets out a blast of light to the east wing, and the whole Chemistry fortress quakes.

"I don't know guys, it seems like hiding in a building that, although hella fortified, has the whole of campus' storage of exploding substances, is like, the worst idea ever," Kirsch remarks uncharacteristically wise from the floor where he was knocked down on top of Danny.

"She's not gonna stop!" Laura cries, and Carmilla makes another attempt to draw the possessed centuries old vampire away from the building. "Eureka!" comes a cry, and in a second LaFontaine is back in Laura's face, this time their palm holding a small cube, dark blue and shining.

"Did you just - "

"I've seen the light," LaFontaine says seriously, thrusting the newly-birthed chemical compound stone into Laura's grasp.

"Oh no, have you?" Laura whines, torn between accepting this great obligation to defeat centuries old evil, and just wanting to go back to her dorm and slam the door shut. But she hears Carmilla calling out to her Mother through the open window, and her grip tightens on the iridescent stone compound.

Perry is at Laura's other shoulder that next instant. "You need to get that stone into the Dean somehow, before Carmilla can stab her with the sword and trap both the vampire and the ancient light bulb of evil in the sword forever."

Laura's face is blank. Perry shrugs. "That's what they said. LaFontaine, I mean. And I've put all my faith in them."

And it's this heartfelt admission from Perry and the look of acute determination in LaFontaine's eyes that make Laura believe too. She doesn't understand any of it, but frankly that's the position she's held here at Silas for the entire term, and all she's got left to go on is her sense of righteousness, and right now that means girl-ing the hell up and preparing to end this war.

 

Looking out the window again, Laura sees that Carmilla has the Dean faced away from them, but is struggling to dodge the Dean's long swipes through the floating ash, and the Blade of Hastur is glowing red hot in Carmilla's hand.

And Laura knows instinctually that this is the moment, and before anyone can say anything, she's crawled onto the window ledge, and it's only the second floor, and the Dean hasn't seen her yet and Carmilla has stalled and is right in the middle of the Dean's warpath and Laura's kinda literally just a leap away and so Laura just - jumps -

 

 - And she slams into the Dean from behind, her tiny body clinging to the 6-foot or maybe even taller Evil-in-a-Powersuit, and the Dean's blast of energy light misses Carmilla by 3 feet and the Dean screams, and that's when Laura does the stupidest thing she's ever done, and shoves the surprisingly pliable stone compound into the gaping maw of a pissed off Vampire, and clamps her hand down over it.

"Carmilla, the sword!" Laura shouts as the Dean falls to one knee and the light that is glowing out from her eyes and behind Laura's hand turns a deep red.

From her kneeling position in front of the Dean, Carmilla hurls herself up, lunges the red-hot sword into the Dean's chest. Laura falls ungracefully off the Dean's back just before the tip of the sword runs her through the back.

There's an inexplicable moment of quiet then, a second that last's an eternity,  and Laura can finally see, in the glowing light from the Dean's open eyes and mouth, the trail of tears running down Carmilla's face, and Laura feels like her heart isn't beating, but then it does, and everything quakes and Danny is suddenly behind Laura and pulling and then the explosion of light knocks everyone to the ground.

 

\----

Laura turns on her camera. They're all in the dorm, Perry bustling about with extra blankets and pillows on the floor, tucking LaFontaine in next to an already sleeping Betty.  Natalie and Elsie are spooning on Laura's bed, and Danny and Kirsch are in the kitchen standing with their arms crossed, glaring at Will who's seated on the stool looking utterly defeated and lost. Carmilla is face down in her sheets, her right arm bandaged heartily. Laura sits at her desk.

"So. It's sunrise. And we're all still alive. Maybe a little worse for wear, but still kicking."

"Everything huuurts," comes Carmilla's muffled groan from behind Laura.

Laura recaps the whole adventure, including that bit at the end where Kirsch straight-up Spartan-style drop-kicked some crazy demon into the hellmouth vortex ( _This. IS. SILAS!!)_ And although she still can't really explain the science of it all, she thanks LaFontaine for their genius, because now both the Vampire Dean and the ancient unspeakable evil are trapped forever in the Blade of Hastur, which lies next to Carmilla's bed, wrapped in the thick canvas of her bag.

"So, we did it, guys. We saved our friends - we saved Silas." And Laura smiles proudly.

A raucous BOOM from somewhere in the distance makes her face fall. Behind her, Danny, Perry and Kirsch instantly reach for a weapon (or something resembling one). Carmilla, instead, hurls herself deeper into her sheets, burying her head under Laura's pillow, "UGH, NO."

\--fin--

**Author's Note:**

> And ta-da they all live happily ever after and just like solve mysteries together and start up Lauronica mARS Detective agency at Silas and its all just comedic goooooold. And yes OT3 in this universe, duh of course.
> 
>  
> 
> *I feel like I might be writing all sorts of angst about how carmilla feels having "killed" her Maman (which yea, I went with "trapped away forever" because honestly idk if I could see Carmilla killing off Maman... it'd be a deeeeep, deeeeep character development that'd I have to really dive into.)
> 
> **Also I couldn't bring myself to kill Will because really I think he's a good bro when he wants to be, I mean dude code has to stand for something right? Plus more interesting character development for a lackey suddenly finding himself without a master. And maybe some sibling rivalry with Carmilla, that's fun.
> 
> *** I could have gone so much further into this but really this is just in order to splurt it all out of my brain, and then maybe later I'll come back and reanalyze pieces of stories into drabbles or one-shots on their own.
> 
> **** THANK YOU FOR READING, I'M SORRY ABOUT THE UNINSPIRED DIALOGUE.


End file.
